The SPIRIT of LUXURY

John Armitage and Joanne Roberts

Abstract The aim of this article is to introduce and examine the concept of the “spirit of luxury.” Accordingly, we commence by delineating the philosophical idea of luxury, emphasizing its discursive meaning, and contemplating its earliest historical and etymological origins. We continue through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by means of a discussion of the philosophical, political, and economic writings of David Hume, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye, and Werner Sombart. Employing Sombart’s sociological work on the spirit of capitalism, we advance and elaborate on the notion of the spirit of luxury. Offering a “Sombartian” account of recent luxury research, specifically the core contributions to this special issue of Cultural Politics, we conclude by critically assessing the concepts of luxury, spirit, and capitalism. Keywords luxury, spirit, capitalism

Introduction

he purpose of this article is to introduce and explore the Tconcept of the “spirit of luxury.” We begin by defining the philosophical idea of luxury, highlighting its discursive meaning, and discussing its ancient roots. We then document the changing perspectives that underpinned the “de-moralization” of luxury in the eighteenth century. It is in this de-moralization process that we locate the emergence of modern understandings of luxury and their connection to the rise of capitalism. Yet, as we show, these new perspectives on luxury were subject to significant radical critique in the late nineteenth century from a diverse set of writers, including Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye. Nevertheless,

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for Werner Sombart, luxury is intimately assessing the concept of spirit. However, connected to the early development of we also highlight the continued value of capitalism. the idea of spirit concerning analyses of Indeed, in this article, we argue that capitalism, as exemplified by Luc Boltanski Sombart’s historical, economic, cultural, and Eve Chiapello’s The New Spirit of and political theories facilitate the elab- Capitalism. We close with a call for further oration of our conception of the spirit of research efforts to explore the relationship luxury, a notion that utilizes ideas of vitality between contemporary capitalism and the and vivaciousness concerning luxury- present-day spirit of luxury. Let us begin, loving human beings. Our next task, then, then, with our consideration of luxury. is to consider Sombart’s understanding of the “spirit of capitalism” so that we may On Luxury derive from it our own appreciation of the As the sociocultural production and repro- spirit of luxury. Beginning with a discus- duction of a sense of sumptuousness, sion of Sombart’s Luxury and Capitalism meaning here “extremely comfortable” and Der Moderne Kapitalismus (Modern living or surroundings, the concept of a life Capitalism), we survey his cultural-political lived in luxury is thoroughly embedded in approach to the spirit of capitalism. In so contemporary consciousness. However, doing, we summarize the key elements of as a sphere of meaning concerned with Sombart’s work and compare it to that of things that are inessential, the provision his contemporary Max Weber, whose of pleasure and comfort can both unify analysis of the rise of the spirit of capital- (e.g., the sphere of the “entitled” or the ism is well known. Yet, we argue, what is “elite”) and divide (e.g., the sphere of the important is not so much the spirit of capi- “barred,” the “constrained,” the “run- talism or even a definition of luxury; rather, of-the-mill,” or the “mediocre”). Luxury, it is that there was an exceptional unity of therefore, might be seen as the sphere the spirit of luxury under early capitalism. of meaning that unites luxury production Having identified and explored extant (the political economy of luxury) and the ideas on the rise of the spirit of capi- sociocultural and political relations that it talism and its connection to luxury, we engenders. then consider the contemporary spirit of That said, it is often possible to use or luxury through a “Sombartian” account of read the word luxury simply and uncon- recent luxury research and, specifically, tentiously. We can easily think of a luxury the core contributions to this special issue car, such as a Ferrari F12berlinetta; the 12:1 March12:1 2016

of Cultural Politics. Here, we cover a wide luxury of flying in a private jet, such as a • range of topics, including art as a luxury Gulfstream G650; a luxury celebrity wed- brand and Starbucks coffee as a “luxury ding replete with every extravagance; or line,” the psychoanalysis of Roman luxus, even a luxury dining experience involving

POLITICS “disruptive luxury” haute couture fash- Tasmanian leatherwood honey, Shanghai

ion, rococo-inspired feminist art, and the hairy crab, Caspian “000” beluga caviar, “antiwork ethic” of Indian female luxury and other culinary frills. The problem arises embroiderers. when we observe that, even in these

CULTURAL Finally, in the conclusion, we return instances, the concept of luxury appears to

2 to the question of luxury, prior to critically mean different things. The question, then,

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is what do all these things share, such that In view of the above, luxury’s recog- they can all be encompassed by the single nized senses and uses clearly arise from term luxury? the history of its usage within different The answer is: not very much. The discourses. Luxury derives, originally, from idea of luxury, as Patrizia Calefato (2014: an old French root: luxury as luxurie, from 3–4) has remarked, is multidiscursive; the Latin luxuria, luxus, or “abundance.” it can be mobilized in numerous diverse By extension, luxury includes sumptuous discourses. This means that we cannot enjoyment. Luxury such as this suggests introduce a set definition of luxury into any not just indulgence but also—in Latin and and every context and expect it to make in the Romance languages—vicious indul- sense. What we have to do is ascertain the gence, a nonneutral sense of the English discursive context itself (e.g., the “spirit” word luxury, which is also expressed by of luxury detailed below). It might be a Latin as luxus, hence the French luxe, the discourse that entails the feeling of being Spanish lujo, and the Italian lusso. “entitled” to a few luxuries after working If we relate all of this back to people, hard; or one that entails buying expensive it becomes clear that the concept of luxury things, such as a Fendi Borromini sofa; or offers productive grounds for a discussion one that expresses desire for that fashion- of minds turned toward extravagance—the able haute couture Chanel dress or that conscious pleasure in and enjoyment of hard-to-obtain bottle of wine, such as a rich, comfortable, and sumptuous living— Pétrus 2005 fine Bordeaux; or even one and toward things considered luxuries that centers on booking a trip on a Virgin rather than necessities. It is not without Galactic spacecraft. In each instance, importance that this usage of the idea of the meaning of luxury will be established luxury overlapped with the establishment relationally, by its difference from others in of the modern market economy in England that discourse—such as necessity, which and elsewhere (see, for example, Sekora is the antonym of luxury—rather than by 1977). Indeed, the early agrarian capitalism reference to any inherent or indisputable of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- properties that are everlastingly fixed as turies coincided with what Christopher J. being typically luxurious. Furthermore, the Berry calls the “de-moralization” of luxury. concept of luxury cannot be “proven” by For Berry (1994: 169–73), the process cap- referring its meaning to phenomena or acts tured by the term de-moralization is part or objects “out there” beyond discourse. of a broad shift involving the debate over There is, for example, no way of “proving” commerce from the seventeenth century that enjoying a stay at a luxury hotel, such onward. Certainly, for him, this debate was as the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai, is a crucial component in the reevaluation of the “true” meaning of luxury. What the luxury in seventeenth-century England, concept of luxury denotes is decided by in particular, as consumption expanded

the term itself, in its discursive context— and marketing structures, including credit POLITICS

for example, the discursive context of networks, became more complex, reach- luxury perfume, which is populated by the ing considerable sophistication by the producers of extravagant fragrances, eighteenth century. Picking out Nicholas

such as Clive Christian’s Imperial Majesty— Barbon and David Hume as key represen- CULTURAL

and by its wealthy consumers. tatives of the reevaluation of luxury, Berry 3

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shows how the previous centuries’ severe role for luxury goods; not only did they serve opposition to and “moralization” of luxury as aspirational incentives, leading to increase in as a “vice” was defeated through the new employment and diffusion of pleasing/desirable coupling of luxury or “refinement”with goods, but also they brought with them the cru- happiness and virtue. For Hume ([1752] cial corollary that, as objects of universal desire, 2012: 263), for instance, humans seek everyone is entitled to these aspirations and gratification and are motivated by “avarice the free enjoyment of those goods. In contrast, and industry, art and luxury.” Moreover, the moralised world was in reality a world of since luxury and avarice were uniformly slavery. (2006: 52) condemned by stern moralists from Plato (in The Republic [380 BC]) and Cicero (in In other words, people are not just preoc- Three Books of Offices, or Moral Duties cupied with meeting their needs as part of [44 BC]) to St. Augustine (in City of God a value-laden purposive order (with fixed [AD 426]), then Hume’s statement alone, boundaries). Rather, desire is now made argues Berry, is an indicator of the de-mor- sense of as the decisive component of alization of luxury in the seventeenth and human motivation. Hence, the systematic eighteenth centuries, encapsulating, as it dissemination of the grounds of luxury does, the change in evaluations that took as desire increased employment, and place. the “democratization” of ambition and Berry (2016) ascribes these shifts pleasure. in conceptions of luxury consumption Moreover, the early hegemony of the to changing notions of desire; from the aristocratic and Aristotelian landowning premodern standpoint wherein desire capitalists was subjected throughout the was characterized as a transgression of seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth “some value laden purposive order with centuries in Britain, the United States, and definite limits” to the modern view of elsewhere to the altogether more trouble- desire as “the definitive element in human some growth of luxurious desires, pleasure, motivation” and, hence, acknowledged for and attractive goods and services in the what it is—the engine and chief influence urban, industrial, and commercial spheres on human morality. Sumptuary laws, for of capitalism (Berg 2005; Berg and Eger example, sought to police luxury transgres- 2003). No sooner was luxury recognized sions in premodern Europe (Hunt 1996). as a term that alluded to things of quality, Yet these laws’ decline and dismissal by and delight considered an indulgence rather modernists such as Barbon and Hume is than a necessity without echoes of excess,

12:1 March12:1 2016 than economic and political transforma-

viewed by Berry as indicative of something • else—a new perspective on “desire”: tions (e.g., the importation into Britain of luxury goods like porcelain from the Far Once desires are seen as the bearers of values East) began to challenge what products were to be considered luxuries rather POLITICS then any individual self-discipline is a matter

of calculation—the desire for the piece of pie than necessities (e.g., fine art). Inventive against the desire to fit into that new dress. entrepreneurial and imperial capitalism, The social counterpart is a matter of weighing for instance, appeared to be no respecter

CULTURAL up the merits of freeing or restricting com- of how luxurious material objects, such as

4 merce. Hence the construction of a positive glass and chinaware, were made or which

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were conducive to the physical comfort and alive in the Paris Commune—the radical “grammar of the polite table” (Berg 2005: socialist and revolutionary government 117). Metal candlesticks, shoe buckles, that ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, and tea urns—helpful tools and pleasant 1871. Ross demonstrates that “commu- ornaments, all—thus created “a nation nal luxury”—a program meaning “public of shoppers” out of the men and women beauty,” such as the improvement of cities of the middle classes (Berg 2005: 193). or the right of all to live and work in plea- Obtaining self-esteem through shopping in surable surroundings—is essential even the advertising-bedecked arcades, which for alternative modes of production such were replete with fashionable luxury com- as the Paris Commune, which produced modities, such men and women pursued a different conception of “wealth” out of their newly formed consumerist dreams revolution. Accordingly, the idea of wealth and desires. In fact, the growing media takes on an atypical form here from that coverage in the press and in journals, such normally associated with money, riches, as the German Das Journal des Luxus und capitalism, and class-based perceptions der Moden (The Journal of Luxury and of pleasure. To be sure, wealth is not only Fashion), established in 1786 and published redefined as the total reconfiguration of until 1827, had the principal aim of dissemi- people’s relationship to art and labor, per- nating information about luxury and fashion sonal relations, and nature but also as the (Bertuch and Kraus [1786] 2016, this issue). social mobilization of devolution and full Thus, on the one hand, the British, participation in art, beauty, and everyday American, and German middle classes life. However, it was left to other, later, embraced the concept and the material orthodox liberal political economists, such objects of luxury in the seventeenth and as France’s Paul Leroy-Beaulieu ([1894] eighteenth centuries. On the other hand, 2016, this issue), and, occasionally, reli- by the late nineteenth century, the German gious ministers, such as the American Uni- political economist of Capital, Karl Marx, tarian Charles F. Dole (1898), to continue was condemning both the idea of luxury the debate over the concept of luxury. and luxurious things. In fact, for Marx Hence, throughout the late nineteenth and ([1867] 1976): 1045), luxury goods are early twentieth centuries, luxury began to only “absolutely necessary for a mode of be sharpened by some in Germany (see, production which creates wealth for the for example, Breckman 1991) and in the non-producer” rather than for the poor United States into quite a precise critical producer, and which consequently must idea of consumerism and leisure, an idea deliver that wealth in forms that authorize that is still influential today. its procurement only by those such as In the United States, and particularly the richer capitalist and middle classes in The Theory of the Leisure Class by discussed above who, above all, sought Thorstein Veblen ([1899] 2009), the critical

enjoyment. Yet, as Adam Dunn (2016, this idea of luxury was founded through his POLITICS

issue) observes in his review of Kristin analysis of economics, institutions, and Ross’s Communal Luxury: The Political “conspicuous consumption.” For Veblen, Imaginary of the Paris Commune (2015), the concept of conspicuous consumption

the concept and the immaterial objects of denotes the acquisition of luxury goods CULTURAL

the luxurious imagination were very much and services in order to publicly display 5

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one’s economic power, either through However, Veblen was not the only one’s income or through one’s accumu- critic of luxury and leisure to emerge in lated wealth (68–101). Because Veblen’s the late nineteenth and early twentieth objective was a critique of leisure, not centuries. Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye, just an appreciation of luxury, and an for instance, was an influential Belgian appreciation of social class, not pleasure, political economist who published an he saw luxury as a facet of consumerism important text simply titled Luxury in 1912. and of the social stratification of people Laveleye’s themes include the politics of founded on the division of labor. Yet the luxury, the economic nature of luxury, and extant division of labor in the late nine- the feelings that induce it. Laveleye thus teenth century, as Veblen remarked, was tries to capture, in the scope of a single a social institution that had been in place volume, the impact of luxury on justice and since the feudal age. As a critic of luxury, the ethical development of civilization in an Veblen thus struggled to determine what, era dominated by questions of necessity, precisely, could be done about a division of machinery, and (un)employment. Lavel- labor that was controlled by the plutocrats eye’s attention was fixed on what he saw who owned the means of production or as various crucial aspects of the issue about the social institutions that allowed of luxury, including luxury and the ideal life, them to capitulate to the economically luxury concerning the wealth of nations, unproductive practices of conspicuous luxury and justice, and luxury as allied with consumption and conspicuous leisure. As diverse forms of statehood and govern- an opponent of luxury as leisure, Veblen ment. Laveleye’s energy and dedication to tended to see himself as a social and the problem of luxury were thus historical economic theorist fighting against the and contemporary. infringements of useless activities that In truth, Laveleye’s (1912: 2) particular neither contributed to the economy nor to approach to luxury was shaped by the fact the material production of the useful goods that, at least for him, luxury is “pernicious and services needed for the functioning of to the individual, and fatal to society.” Yet society. From Veblen’s perspective, there- this outlook was not dedicated to a new fore, it is the middle class and the working kind of disapproving Christianity on behalf class who are usefully employed in the of human kindness and modesty but, industrialized, productive occupations that rather, to a critical sort of political economy support the entirety of society. Certainly, on behalf of usefulness and fairness. Key his late nineteenth-century socioeconomic influences on Laveleye’s understanding of 12:1 March12:1 2016

critique of the business of luxury as leisure luxury were Henri Joseph Léon Baudrillart • incorporated everything from the price of (1821–92) and John Stuart Mill (2008). luxury goods and services to the cultural However, Laveleye writes that, unlike politics of luxury in the United States and Baudrillart, for instance, who “does not

POLITICS elsewhere. Moreover, Veblen’s critique trouble to seek a definition” (3), he will

also offered a superb analysis of the emer- not presume that everybody understands gent division of labor based on technolo- what luxury means. Laveleye therefore gists, scientists, and engineers, or what takes refuge in the belief that the history of

CULTURAL we know today as the socioeconomic luxury will be written at a more profound

6 structure of the mass-industrial societies political and economic level if it begins of the twentieth century. with a precise definition, adopting the

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French politician Comte Émile de Kératry’s used in construction, in place of willow. definition of luxury as “that which creates “Formerly,” he writes, “houses were of imaginary needs, exaggerates real wants, willow and men were of oak; now-a-days, diverts them from their true end, estab- houses are of oak and men are of willow” lishes a habit of prodigality in society, and (quoted in Laveleye 1912: 15). Similarly, offers through the senses a satisfaction during the Industrial Revolution, the wear- of self-love which puffs up, but does not ing of linen shirts, flowered cottons, and nourish, the heart, and which presents muslins contributed to the development to others the picture of a happiness to of machine-driven skills. Hence, little by which they can never attain” (quoted in little, more and more luxurious objects Laveleye 1912: 4). In fact, Laveleye was were brought within reach of the majority. less interested in de Kératry’s definition Even so, Laveleye (1912: 6–24) never loses of luxury than in coming to grips with crit- sight of the fact that, for him, the “true” icizing luxurious things, luxurious objects, definition of luxury is that it “is at the same and anything else that cannot be procured time dear and superfluous,” much like the without great expense. emotions that lead to expensive vanities, Laveleye was centrally concerned with sensuality, and the impulse to adornment the issue of our primary needs because, (see, for example, Simmel 2000). Small for him, luxury is whatever does not wonder, therefore, that, for Laveleye, answer to them. He argues that luxurious “Luxury Is Unjustifiable” ([1912] 2016, phenomena cost a great deal of money this issue), because it disregards essential to purchase and a great deal of labor to human needs that, then as now, remain produce, and yet are only within reach unmet in large parts of the world. In short, of the few. In Laveleye’s (1912: 4) terms, Laveleye considers luxury improper, this means that the “extreme of luxury is immoral, unjust, and inhuman. However, that which destroys the product of many Laveleye’s efforts to stop what he saw days labour without bringing any rational as the inappropriate spread of the taste satisfaction to the owner.” He notes: for luxury was averted not only by those “The queen of the ballroom destroys in “guilty” of plotting against the happiness the mazes of the waltz a lace skirt worth of nations by indulging in opulence but 10,000 francs: there you have the equiva- also by the arrival of alternative theories lent of 50,000 hours of labour, and labour of luxury, such as the one proposed by of the most tedious kind, and fatal to the Werner Sombart in 1913, in his Luxury and eyes, destroyed in a moment.” Yet Lavel- Capitalism ([1913] 1967). eye readily acknowledges that luxury is a Indeed, as contemporary proponents relative concept: all nations and all epochs of a conception of the taste for luxury contemplate everything as unnecessary not as happiness, indulgence, or opulence that they do not regularly utilize; people but as “the spirit of luxury”—of luxury

grumble about the “sophistication” of as a kind of animating or vital principle POLITICS

their neighbors in every age; and authors in human beings—we want to offer a of all periods are irate that this material theoretical perspective to others in cultural is being used to make a particular luxu- politics derived from Sombart’s Luxury

rious object instead of that material. For and Capitalism ([1913] 1967). However, CULTURAL

example, the fourteenth-century author before engaging with the spirit of lux- 7 Slaney was outraged that oak was being ury, we need to understand Sombart’s

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philosophical viewpoint on the culture and and a work influenced by the Historical politics of modern capitalism, the place School. Dealing with the transition from of Luxury and Capitalism within it, and, feudalism to the capitalism of the twen- crucially, his conception of the spirit of tieth century, Der Moderne Kapitalismus capitalism. presents an examination of the growth of capitalism split into three phases: “early From the Spirit of Capitalism capitalism” (finishing before the Industrial to the Spirit of Luxury Revolution), “high capitalism” (starting Sombart was born in Ermsleben, Harz, in around 1760), and, lastly, “late capital- 1863, and eventually became a leading ism” (commencing with the First World German economist and sociologist. He War). According to Sombart, the driving was head of the “Youngest” Historical forces behind the first phase of capitalism School and was one of Europe’s foremost were innovative businesspeople, nobles, social scientists during the first quarter of explorers, merchants, and craftspeople. the twentieth century. Sombart’s criticism In the second phase, Sombart argues, the of the liberal political economy tradition capitalist entrepreneur was the exclusive led him to socialism and to a career in director of the economic process. Finally, economic history. He studied law and the third phase of capitalism, at least for economics at the universities of Pisa, Sombart, is not a phase of decline; quite Berlin, and Rome, gaining a reputation the reverse, he asserts that this phase as a left-wing social activist, which also signifies capitalism in its heyday, even initially prevented him from obtaining a if purely economic motivations are, in permanent university post. With the rise Sombart’s estimation, no longer dominant, of Marxism, Sombart used and interpreted having been supplanted by “the principle Marx’s Capital and, later, began to call of agreement.” himself a convinced Marxist, before finally In 1967, the English translation of claiming that Marx had made mistakes Luxury and Capitalism was published. The on numerous points of significance, book was no best seller in Germany in inclusive of luxury and capitalism. Luxury 1913 and the English translation published and Capitalism was first published in in 1967 is now out of print. In the first 1913 as Luxus und Kapitalismus, but its decades of the twenty-first century, how- significance was missed, except by one or ever, Luxury and Capitalism is starting to two reviewers (e.g., Keasbey 1914), almost enjoy the international acclaim it deserves certainly due to the interruptions of the (see, for example, Schrage 2012; Franch- 12:1 March12:1 2016

First World War. etti 2013). Let us locate the text in its • Prior to Luxury and Capitalism, Som- context before considering it with regard bart, much like his friend and colleague to the contemporary research and writers Max Weber, worked for years on the intrin- contained in this special issue.

POLITICS sic contradictions of capitalism, ultimately Sombart is well known for exposing

producing his magnum opus, Der Moderne the need to discard key Marxist principles, Kapitalismus (1902), before adding more such as the materialist dialectic, in support volumes (including Luxury and Capitalism), of a mode of elucidation that is associated

CULTURAL totaling six in all by 1927. Der Moderne with pre-Marxian German idealism and

8 Kapitalismus is a methodical history of eco- the renunciation of the cogency of Marx’s nomic development through the centuries effort to clarify the roots of capitalism by

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recourse to economic determinism. In the- cultural sciences as an intellectual forerun- orizing luxury and capitalism, for instance, ner of cultural studies and thus of cultural Sombart emphasized the idiosyncratic politics. Sombart’s approach, for instance, development of capitalism as the manifes- is based on the realization that “each tation of an interdependent cultural event culture is unique and self-actualizing— given direction by a spirit of calculating integrated by its own spirit or ethos,” rationality that pervaded the entirety of cul- inclusive of the lack of “preparations for ture with its singular individuality and drive. realizing higher unities” (Siegelman 1967: He argues that the historical changes in the ix). The fault of much cultural political economy can only be correctly understood thinking is that it reduces everything to by examining changes in the spirit or the “preparations for realizing higher unities,” ethos of capitalism, which, for Sombart, to fragmentary endeavors at improvement was the basis of tangible experiences. The of sociocultural, political, and economic concept of the spirit of European capital- difficulties. For Sombart, these prepara- ism formed the limits and the integrating tions and efforts blur our recognition of the principles of his economic investigations, remarkable unity of the capitalist spirit. which permitted Sombart to manage huge Sombart developed a variety of reli- amounts of historical information. He does gious-influenced methods and concepts not intend Luxury and Capitalism to be to overcome the thinking of Weber ([1905] understood in the unilinear, theoretical, 2011) on, for example, the importance of historical, and evolutionary terms born of Puritanism for the development of the the Enlightenment’s faith in the inexorable- capitalist system. For Weber, Calvinist and ness of human progress. All that Sombart Puritan enterprise personified the spirit claims is that capitalism’s moral exhaustion of capitalism through business transac- can be demonstrated. What readers often tions characterized by a moral approach to miss is Sombart’s methodological original- economic, social, and cultural life. It was a ity. He avoids purely economic thinking in spirit that was lacking in the Middle Ages favor of what we might call “cultural think- but which later shaped the new and distin- ing,” but which we can here insist should guishing varieties of modern development be known as “cultural political thinking.” and rationality, organization, labor, pro- In fact, as Reiner Grundmann and Nico duction, industrialism, enterprise, and the Steher (2001: 274) observe in their tellingly factory system. Yet Weber’s “spirit” was titled article—“Why Is Werner Sombart a general concept, envisioned to function Not Part of the Core of Classical Sociol- as shorthand for the characteristic traits ogy? From Fame to (Near) Oblivion”— of modern capitalism, such as science, Sombart’s “self-conception encompasses technology, control of industry, a free labor much of the social sciences and some force, commercial activity, rational book- fields that can be included in the human- keeping, and so on. Additionally, Weber’s

ities.” Consequently, Grundmann and oeuvre was a comparative analysis, incor- POLITICS

Steher insist that Sombart’s contributions porating the economics and the ethics of on modern capitalism should be regarded other world religions. It was also a compar- as contributions to the cultural sciences ative examination that afforded a form of

(Kulturwissenschaften). From this angle, control in Weber’s hunt for an underlying CULTURAL

it is reasonable to consider Sombart’s explanation of the capitalist spirit, or the 9 distinctive method and contributions to the lack of it, in, for example, Asian religions,

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all of which permitted Weber to highlight other words, Sombart never relinquished Protestantism’s singular role in the con- his assertion that Judaism was the point struction of the spirit of capitalism. of departure for the spirit of capitalism. In contrast to Weber, Sombart ([1913] However, “Sombart and Weber were,” 1962) contends, in his The Jews and Mod- writes Philip Siegelman (1967: xiv–xv), ern Capitalism, that “the spirit of capitalism “one in their insistence on discovering was crucially nourished by Judaism’s ratio- the special role of religion in forming the nality, its legalism, the commercial genius spirit of Western capitalism. Both were of its religious leaders, the Deuteronomic interested in countering the economic and injunction which permitted different com- materialistic determinism of the Marx- mercial dealings and a different moral code ist interpretation of history; for both the in relations between Jews and non-Jews quest for an alternative explanation led (especially regarding usury)” (Siegelman to an emphasis on discovering attitudinal 1967: xiii). Sombart claims further that factors, the ethos, the spirit that infused Judaism was fundamental to the evolu- the newly heightened commercialism of tion of capitalism in Europe. Indeed, for Western Europe” (emphasis in original). Sombart, it was the use of securities and Furthermore, both Sombart and Weber credit systems, moneylending to heads of were central to shifting the historian’s cus- states, proficiency in luxury trading, and tomary emphasis from the industrialized overseas financing of colonial ventures and technological foundations of capitalism that allowed Judaism to introduce “the to its cultural, philosophical, spiritual, and rational and calculating spirit of capitalism” socioreligious roots. into England through Antwerp and Holland Demonstrably, Sombart expounds an (Siegelman 1967: xiii). One important role alternative historical account of the spirit of Judaism, aside from functioning as a of capitalism to sociologists such as catalyst for economic diffusion and the Weber but also a different account of lux- acceleration of international trade and for ury to political economists such as Lavel- building up modern nation-states, institu- eye. Furthermore, we argue that Som- tions, and organizations, is its pivotal effect bart’s historical, economic, cultural, and on the development of “the principles political theories permit the development underlying economic life—that which may of our conception of the spirit of luxury, an be termed the modern economic spirit” idea that employs notions of dynamism (Siegelman 1967: xiii). Unlike Weber, and vitalism regarding luxury-loving human then, Sombart gave historical precedence beings. To advance our idea of the spirit 12:1 March12:1 2016

to Judaism in the origin of capitalism: of luxury theoretically, practically, cultur- • Judaism had already started the spirit of ally, and politically, then, in the rest of this capitalism in the sixteenth century. Contra article, we draw on Sombart’s Luxury and Weber, Puritanism for Sombart was not Capitalism.

POLITICS the ethical dynamism powering capitalism; As we have seen throughout this

capitalism was the determining influence section, there is an intrinsic link between driving Puritanism. Yet, for all of Sombart’s Sombart’s notion of the spirit of capitalism claims that Puritanism was antagonistic and his work concerning what we call the

CULTURAL to capitalism, he does grant that some spirit of luxury. Additionally, within the of its features unintentionally accelerated pages of Luxury and Capitalism, Sombart 10 the progress of the capitalist spirit. In details—along with the growing demand

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for luxury goods and services—the appear- so, too, is the idea of the spirit of luxury. ance of the new society of the princely Accordingly, we argue that, in uncovering courts in the Middle Ages, the increase in the singular role of religion in the creation middle-class prosperity, and new varieties of the spirit of Western capitalism, Som- of aristocracy, as each of these took shape bart also exposed the extraordinary role in the initial stage of European capitalism. of luxury in the development of the spirit Sombart argues that it was the sixteenth-, of Western capitalism. However, as we seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century cit- conceive it, the spirit of luxury is neither ies of Europe that generated a new spirit, economic nor materialistic but psychologi- a new culture, and a new politics of luxury cal, stimulating, and energetic. Indeed, it is as the evolution and internal structure a force that infuses everything from highly of the metropolis adapted to capitalism. commercialized luxury brands to our sense Theorizing the development of the city of history and industry, technology, culture, from the eighteenth century onward, philosophy, and, above all, capitalism. however, entails more than the investigation of capitalism. Undoubtedly, it also The Contemporary Spirit of Luxury entails the analysis of morality from the But how are we to consider what we call methodological perspective of the cultural the spirit of luxury in the contemporary political thinking adopted by Sombart in his historical phase of twenty-first-century contributions to the cultural sciences. For capitalism? Perhaps we can subject the early capitalism was not purely directed concepts of luxury and capitalism to by questions of industry and technology a contemporary critical “Sombartian” but also by questions concerning what analysis. “The general thesis of Luxury Sombart (1967: 42) calls the “seculariza- and Capitalism,” writes Siegelman (1967: tion” of love, by the cultural politics of the xviii), “is that the thirteenth and fourteenth recent appearance of the courtesan, and centuries witnessed the first significant by the cultural development of luxury as a step in the appearance of a new society: society-wide spirit or philosophy. Yet what the emergence of great fortunes in Italy matters most is not the definition or the that were no longer based on the feudal traits of luxury but the extraordinary unity economy.” According to Sombart, this of the spirit of luxury under early capital- capital accumulation was the outcome ism. Whether medieval court or knight of trade with Asia, the detection of new in armor, nouveau-riche man or woman reserves of silver, and private moneylend- of status, in the home or in society, the ing at extortionate rates. Furthermore, spirit of luxurious capitalism is triumphant. this growth of capital accumulation in the For Sombart, and for us, therefore, the subsequent centuries throughout Europe relationship between luxury and the retail was characterized by the development of and wholesale trades, as well as between princely states, a new urbanized aristoc-

luxury and agriculture and colonialism racy, and the renewal of the arts, sciences, POLITICS

and industry, is a revolutionary spiritual and the absolute secular state. relationship and force that transformed the Similarly, we argue that, today, we are consumption of luxury goods and services seeing the first important global stages of

in early capitalism. In summary, while the emergence of a new spirit of luxury CULTURAL Sombart’s and Weber’s conceptions of the founded on the recent appearance of the 11 spirit of capitalism are extremely valuable, huge wealth of the “super-rich” (Freeland

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2013; Hay 2013; Irvin 2008; McQuaig and butterfly, in three series, “Love, Hope, and Brooks 2013; Wilkin 2015) in the United Beauty,” each of which is signified by a States and elsewhere. Additionally, such differently shaped butterfly. Hirst consid- wealth is not based on the capitalist econ- ers the butterfly to be an emblem of the omy typical of those in the advanced soci- beauty and delicacy of life. Hence, the eties of the twentieth century. For this cap- panels are “limited” to “just” fifty pieces ital accumulation comes, at least in part, (of each of the twelve available colors). from luxury trade largely with Southeast The panels can be used in a multitude Asia and the Middle East (China, Dubai, of ways, including being mounted on an South Korea, Saudi Arabia) (Kapferer and easel, framed, and hung on a wall. Costing Bastien 2012; Som and Blanckaert 2015). £12,000 (US$18,290) each, every panel is Equally, the development of new supplies individually signed, numbered, and arrives of luxury goods and services, and the easy with a signed edition certificate. There availability of money at low interest rates, are, therefore, various increasing parallels has promoted a luxury-based model of and consequently almost imperceptible capital accumulation in the present period differences between contemporary art and on a global scale. a contemporary luxury brand. Certainly, it Consider, for instance, the capital is argued by Giulia Zaniol (2016, this issue) growth of the extended families of super- that, while branding has always been sig- rich royals from Brunei and Thailand, Saudi nificant in the overpriced art world, today’s Arabia and Swaziland—the new urbanized luxury branding prevents a critical approach upper class. The Sultan of Brunei, Has- both to the artist-celebrity and to his or her sanal Bolkiah, for example, is the owner art. For these and other reasons, then, it is of the Dorchester Collection, which was hardly unreasonable to object to the notion established in 2006 to manage ten luxury of a work of art as a luxury brand since five-star hotels in Europe and the United such an idea bypasses cultural decisions States: the Dorchester, the Beverly Hills concerning aesthetic quality or cultural Hotel, Plaza Athénée, Le Meurice, Principe value in favor of an economic decision di Savoia, Hotel Bel-Air, Coworth Park, 45 regarding how much super-rich art collec- Park Lane, Le Richemond, and Hotel Eden. tors are willing to pay for luxury-branded Alternatively, contemplate the artists’ work. “renaissance” of the contemporary art Further, there seems to be an eerie market, the growth of artist-celebrities degree of fit between sidestepping cultural in the advanced societies, and the addi- decisions in support of economic deci- 12:1 March12:1 2016

tional concentration of immense wealth sions and other sociocultural divisions—for • as these self-same artist-celebrities, instance, those of regard and disregard. such as Damien Hirst, collaborate with Sombart, of course, was a keen observer luxury brands such as Lalique, the French of the deliberate refinement of social

POLITICS glassmaker founded by the renowned graces in sixteenth-century Europe. In

jeweler René Lalique in 1888. In 2015, the court of Francis I, he relates, women for instance, Lalique introduced a new had unmatched power because they limited-edition range of multipurpose contributed to court life a formerly unpar-

CULTURAL crystal panels created in collaboration alleled amount of plotting and pretense, with Hirst. Titled “Eternal,” this collabora- an insistence on social graces, and a 12 tion celebrates Hirst’s iconic subject, the hunger for luxury goods ([1913] 1967: 3).

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But what should we say about the state of in Sombart’s seventeenth-century Europe, social graces in the twenty-first century, a nouveau riche has arrived, but today it particularly in the United States? Taking is a nouveau riche of time (Sharma 2014). the “court” of Starbucks as her example, Undoubtedly, it is a nouveau riche that is Patricia Mooney Nickel (2016, this issue) further changing the spirit of our luxurious considers the growing importance of the times by developing new alliances with corporation’s recent introduction of a new the “graciousness” that is clearly asso- “luxury line” for users of the Starbucks ciated with a mode of (im)materialization card mobile app. Delivering a previously that discloses the latest role of what unprecedented degree of (im)material- we might call the “social disgraces” of ization while generating new questions disregard in luxury relations at large. In this about the impact of apps on the everyday contemporary period of capitalism, then, practice of order, Nickel maintains that relatively affluent individuals are accord- today’s social graces—much like yester- ingly permitted to form “luxury lines” day’s, but in very different ways—are that involve them inserting themselves products of time, power, and the (im) in socioculturally superior spatiotemporal material desire for and practices associ- relation to the “(s)lower classes” (Armitage ated with luxury goods and services. Far and Roberts 2002: 50). By virtue of the removed from Sombart’s studies of the acquisition of an app and the readiness to seventeenth century, we are therefore disregard others’ practices of ordering and currently entering yet another major stage. consuming in time and space, one’s own Yet this stage is not that of the appearance monetized practices are exposed through of a new society but the appearance of the the business-related consumption of “lux- end of all those promises of “community” ury lines” of material goods produced by and “social consciousness” so adored Starbucks, which itself makes an explicit by so-called “responsible” corporations claim to regarding others with generosity. such as Starbucks. To highlight the level of Yet such exposure gives a fake sense of Starbucks’ “responsibility,” for instance, middle-class social standing as harmo- one has only to refer to the Reuters investi- nious, according to Nickel, because it is gation in 2012 that demonstrated how the related by twenty-first-century fictions of corporation had booked “cumulative sales community-producing luxury that profess of more than £3bn [US$4.5 billion] since to be practicing regard for others while opening in Britain [in 1998]” but had “paid actually practicing regard only for the new only £8.6m [US$12.9 million] in corpora- aristocrats of time, the wholly monetized tion tax over the same period” (Bowers classes of neoliberalism. 2015: 1–2). At the same time, toward the Additionally, the discourse of what we closing stages of the Obama administra- have called “critical luxury studies” (Armit- tion, middle-class wealth is apparently age and Roberts 2016) works not merely

growing once again in the United States. to unmask a bogus feeling of middle-class POLITICS

At present, Nickel argues, time in the social status as congenial but also to raise United States and elsewhere is thus made questions concerning luxus and other luxurious through the power of the app to kinds of sociocultural primacy associated

redistribute how one is positioned with with Thanatos, or the death drive. Drawing CULTURAL respect to others waiting in line for coffee. on the psychoanalytical and philosoph- 13 In twenty-first-century America, then, as ical writings of Sigmund Freud ([1920]

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2001) and Georges Bataille ([1967] 1991), Featherstone’s is a new spirit of “hyper- Mark Featherstone (2016, this issue), pleasure” beyond this or that manifestation similar to Sombart before him, considers of simple enjoyment, since hyperpleasure the development of the European city. inhabits the realm of the infinite repetition Sombart, however, focused on the large of pleasure that we find in the experience and crowded consumer cities of medieval of addiction. Thus, whereas Sombart Europe centered on the existence of a ([1913] 1967: 39–112) shows that, from royal court, with its extravagant expenses the eleventh century onward, love became and urbane delights, while Feather- progressively secularized in Europe stone investigates the psycho-politics of and, consequently, no longer subject to Emperor Nero’s (54–68 BC) Rome and, in religious laws and organizations, Feather particular, the Roman concept of luxus as stone reveals that, in the age of Nero, excess. Avoiding a consideration of those the pursuit of excess led the emperor to Roman luxury industries that flourished a luxurious space where he effectively by supplying the affluent of Rome with a disappeared into a universal substance vast tide of consumer items (Dalby 2000), beyond being itself. Sombart’s economic Featherstone instead scrutinizes the and historical consideration of feelings cultural politics of Roman luxus. In addi- regarding sexuality in the art and literature tion, he does so by way of a comparative of medieval Europe is thus complemented analysis of Nero, who drove Roman luxus by Featherstone’s psychoanalytic analysis to its psychopathic limits, and the Stoic of attitudes toward luxus and what Andrew philosopher Seneca, who advocated mos Dalby (2000: 266) calls “the art of being maiorum, or the moral life of moderation, Roman” that impelled the experience of equilibrium, and proportion. Long before luxury beyond its objective limits. Sombart’s study of seventeenth-century For Featherstone, however, it is the cities, Rome, Featherstone argues, was writings of Bataille that lead beyond both the site of an unadulterated experience Nero and Freud’s understandings of of luxus that surpassed any mere object, luxus. Where Sombart observed the self- which was always too ignoble and tangible indulgent aesthetic idea of woman devel- for the Romans to be genuinely luxurious. oping in the fourteenth century as being From Featherstone’s psychoanalytic view- against the religious institutional fetters to point, then, Nero’s Rome was not a city which love had been subjected in the past, increased by the attendance of creditors, Featherstone senses a pleasure-seeking financiers, and bankers, as Florence was aesthetic notion of humanity that has 12:1 March12:1 2016

for Sombart, but a city expanded by the forever been in opposition to the luxury • quest for the orgy of luxus, by people we associate with the ownership of this whose drives produced a “thanatology” or that particular object. Consequently, able to shift beyond Freud’s “pleasure Featherstone is led to the conclusion that,

POLITICS principle” to luxurious excess. today at least, it is not the cultural values

Furthermore, and comparable to of art, literature, or hedonistic womanhood Sombart’s highly innovative explanation that are responsible for the manifestation of transformed sexual values in early of our shifting attitudes toward luxus but

CULTURAL capitalism, Featherstone, too, identifies the economic values of consumerism the advent of a new spirit of luxury. But driven by neoliberal global capitalism. 14

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Thus, although for Sombart love eventually Inadvertently reconfiguring Sombart’s became its own defense, as an amorous psychological hypotheses concerning the entity that lives outside every institution, changing aspects of luxury in the cre- for Featherstone, it is love of endless ation of contemporary capitalism, Faiers consumption that, currently, has become introduces and discusses the concept of its own vindication as a passionate object “disruptive luxury.” In his contribution, that exists beyond all organizations. In Faiers discloses his knowledge of the short, the fourteenth-century emancipa- practical techno-architectural apparatuses tion of love has now been joined by the and philosophical diversities of this aspirant twenty-first-century liberation of “econ- “corrective” to luxury’s established models omies of excess” (Armitage 2001). For of production and consumption (Spuybroek Sombart, of course, the development of 2009). Yet, for Faiers, and reminiscent of luxury was propelled by the entrance of a Sombart’s descriptions of luxury as erotic new group of women in the Middle Ages, satisfaction or Featherstone’s analysis of such as courtesans, at the court, a group Roman sexual excess, the idea of disrup- of women that boosted the sociocultural tive luxury is so vague that, like the con- wish for prosperity and for splendor, cept of luxury itself, with its multifaceted conspicuous consumption, and majestic historical, cultural, and sensual configu- recreation. From Featherstone’s stand- rations, it will probably take a new Freud point, though, the advance of luxury is not to survey all the potential implications of to do with the arrival of female courtesans disruptive luxury. at court or in society but to do with the What is more, if we accept Sombart’s essential problematic of humanity: how to ([1913] 1967: 60) dictum that all “personal contend with excess. What happens when luxury springs from purely sensual plea- there is no more expansion of luxury left sure,” then we may also have to accept and the economy can no longer develop? Faiers’s statement that, today, an increas- What happens when the longing for afflu- ing amount of personal luxury arises from ence conflicts with the fact that there is no technological pleasure. No longer preoc- more space for tinsel and sequins and no cupied with simply captivating the senses, more time for conspicuous consumption? contemporary notions of luxury are inclined Featherstone’s answer to these questions to find their ideal manifestation in the rapid is that, in the time of “Empire” (Hardt and prototyping and 3-D printing of objects Negri 2001), in the time of the hacked Ash- not in everyday usage. In other words, ley Madison website for hopeful adulterers the relatively inexpensive expenditure on and of the super-rich spending immense such new technological objects appar- sums on ostentatious amusements— from ently establishes one conceivable path to haute couture fashion shows to the styling luxury’s disruption. However, for Faiers, of their luxurious homes—excess has what matters most of all is the customary

been transformed into useless expenditure relationship between luxury companies POLITICS

on a planetary scale. and new technology. In fact, it is this The struggle to disrupt, if not dis- relationship that Faiers believes lies at the mantle, the supremacy of haute couture root of the socioeconomic and aesthetic

fashion items, such as mink, is analyzed parallels between today’s Gilded Age of CULTURAL by Jonathan Faiers (2016, this issue). luxury consumption and the art nouveau 15

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architects of the belle epoque, such as taken place. In particular, Hamburger sees Hector Guimard. Unquestionably, the main a fundamental correlation between her problem for the growth of disruptive luxury feminist-inspired imagery (which Ham- in the present period is whether main- burger explains as being derived from the stream luxury companies will ever feel artists and artisans from the baroque and the power of disruptive luxury’s efforts to rococo periods) and her consumption of disturb the status quo. news radio. Because of the predominant For these reasons, and employing a role of news radio’s “outside world” as fashion spread from American Vogue in political background talk, especially during 1977, Faiers finds a persuasive exposition the 1990s and the first decade of this cen- of the imbrication of conventional luxury tury, news radio fast became Hamburger’s with technological innovation in the ascen- preferred source material. Thus, it was dant wherever fur begins to force itself into only because of the extensive dissemi- fashion media and that season’s fur coats nation of news radio that such stimulants are freely expressed as the archetypal as the Iran-Contra hearings, the O. J. luxury. Conversely, as fur coats are increas- Simpson trial, and the Clinton sex scandals ingly deprived of expression, as they are in were integrated so readily into Hamburg- our own era, where animals are not viewed er’s paintings and appropriations of the as ours to wear, fur is technologized rather art-historical canon. Employing painting than being worn. Thus, technology-clad as a medium to investigate political, models are integrated with fashion and criminal, and sexual disgrace, Hamburger other media, particularly in such technolog- consequently produces interpretations of ical forms as robots (e.g., Star Wars) and, femininity that only indirectly reference today, as technology-clad androids with the female body. Excavating the repertoire artificial intelligence, such as Ava, the chief of the polite nineteenth-century cultured character in Alex Garland’s filmEx Machina “lady,” Hamburger’s feminist-influenced (2015). art accordingly highlights the importance The technological initiatives docu- of the decorative arts as a model for mented by Faiers are also taken up in the narrative discourses on contemporary form of the “moral hazards” that arise political, social, and economic concerns. within critical luxury studies, in which the In 2016, therefore, traditional notions concept of luxury undergoes a radical of women, feminism, and the luxurious painterly transformation, as in the work of decorative arts are being reworked in the visual artist Susan Hamburger (2016, terms of numerous aesthetic, political, 12:1 March12:1 2016

this issue). While discussing her aural sociocultural, and economic approaches. In • consumption of news radio in her studio, addition, although the questions concern- Hamburger turns to an examination of ing luxury have in no way been answered, the aesthetic consequences of near- they are being productively opened up.

POLITICS solitary confinement on her art. Ham- For Tereza Kuldova (2016, this issue), for

burger deduces that without her news- instance, luxury is understood as a fatalis- radio–accompanied solitary confinement tic characteristic of unequal sociocultural and the informationalization of her tastes activities, and therefore appreciated as

CULTURAL in entertainment, which are due to the an important sphere for the reproduction influence of the “outside world,” this of both sociocultural “wasting” and an 16 development of her art would never have “antiwork ethic” in contemporary India.

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Distinct from Sombart, who also produced Rejecting large-scale industrialism and a decidedly idiosyncratic study of the sig- the luxury industries, these women favor nificance for the development of capitalism “luxuriating” rather than indulging in the of luxury consumption in global trade with production of luxury goods in a sweat- the “colonies,” Kuldova’s long-standing shop founded on a capitalistic footing. ethnographic research among producers Against Sombart’s assertion that, by the of contemporary luxurious embroideries eighteenth century, all genuine luxury has been conducted in Lucknow, a North industries were changed into capitalistic Indian city famed for its golden age as an businesses generally distinguished by influential cultural center of wealth and large-scale production, Kuldova reveals overindulgence. Furthermore, Kuldova’s that, in the twenty-first century, at least contemporary research unintentionally some perceptions of luxury are less contests Sombart’s earlier claim that, by converted into capitalistic businesses than the close of the seventeenth century, the they are typified by the small-scale experi- swollen prosperity widespread in Europe ence of hierarchical inequality. In contrast induced strengthened requests for luxury to Sombart ([1913] 1967: 171), Kuldova goods that shook traders out of their essentially maintains that luxury is not “a handicrafts view of trade into industrial legitimate child of illicit love” that “gave capitalism. Kuldova demonstrates that, by birth to capitalism” but an illegitimate pro- the twenty-first century, the ever rising ducer of sociocultural resignation, aggres- affluence dominant in Europe, while still sive inequity, and dishonest guarantees of provoking deepened calls for luxury meritocracy that were, in part, triggered by goods, has not shaken producers, if not neoliberal capitalism (Harvey 2007). traders, from a handicrafts perspective on trade. Instead, rather than focusing on rev- Conclusion: On the Terra Incognita eries of industrial capitalism, the women of the Spirit of Luxury embroiderers of luxury pieces sneer at In conclusion, we must return to the luxury goods, designers, and middle-class question of the relationship between campaigners, and embrace what Kuldova luxury and the other “spirits” that perme- calls an “antiwork ethic.” In this primarily ate the unique spirit of capitalism. Can agricultural setting, and challenging Som- the values of rationality or asceticism ever bart’s claims of 1913, the response surpass the demand for luxury production of these female producers to the demand and consumption? How are luxury pro- for luxuries, especially in Lucknow, is duction and luxury consumption related to valorize their own leisure time. Con- to other sociocultural and political “true” sequently, although today the pleas of or “false” needs (Armitage and Roberts Europe, as in Sombart’s day, are for a 2014)? Such questions generally provoke rational capitalist form of postagricultural the stipulation for luxury production and

production, “manned” by women and luxury consumption to be “well defined.” POLITICS

dedicated to the large-scale production However, not unlike Sombart, and while of embroidered luxury pieces, Kuldova we do respect the management of perti- discovers not the essential function of nent dependant variables and the careful

luxury consumption but the critical role of marshaling of empirical evidence, we CULTURAL luxury consumption as that of the women suggest that any appropriate investigation 17 “wasting” their time instead of working. into the spirit of luxury will forever involve

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more sociocultural value and conjecture championed National Socialism, and his than knowledge of market price (Roberts association with Nazism is still disputed and Armitage 2016). For the answer to the today (Lenger 1994). In 1934, for instance, question “Did luxury create capitalism or Sombart published Deutscher Sozialismus did capitalism create luxury?” is almost (German Socialism), wherein he asserted certainly destined to remain unknown. As that a “new spirit” was set to “rule we suggested in our elaboration of the mankind”: the spirit of German Socialism meaning of luxury above, no one can prove (i.e., National Socialism). Espousing the that this or that good or service is really well-being of the whole over the well-being luxury, just as Sombart cannot prove that of the individual, the “total mobilization” of there was a necessary causal association sociocultural life, a planned economy, large- between luxury production and luxury scale state regulation, and dutiful citizens consumption and the development of cap- without rights, Sombart’s German Social- italism in the advanced countries. There is ism was saturated with talk of a Volksgeist no final accounting, either, for the fact that (national spirit), which, like Hegel (1979) luxury production in the advanced countries before him, he saw as metaphysical yet helped establish capitalism or for the fact also against the “Jewish” capitalist spirit that extravagant tastes and the demand for (Harris 1942). Unsurprisingly, later cultural marital infidelities are seemingly historically historians, such as Jeffrey Herf (1984: 130), and geographically universal. “We want characterized Sombart (together with Ernst fish from the Syrtes that cost a shipwreck Jünger [see Armitage 2003], Carl Schmitt, to bring to Rome: we’re tired of grey mul- and Martin Heidegger) as a “reactionary let,” wrote Petronius in The Satyricon. “We modernist.” Moreover, it is doubtful that, fancy a mistress, not a wife. Roses are out: at the time, Sombart would have rebuffed we want cinnamon” (quoted in Dalby 2000: this accusation, particularly as his work left 266). Sombart’s occasional vagueness no room for uncertainty or later clarifica- regarding the causal relationship between tion regarding his defense of nationalism, luxury and capitalism is thus the result precapitalist forms of everyday life, and the not of poor scholarship but of a sensible rejection of modern technology (Grund- acknowledgment that the “influence” of mann and Steher 2001: 271–73). luxury on the development of capitalism Yet Sombart’s idea of the spirit of and the “influence” of capitalism on the capitalism lives on. Luc Boltanski and growth of luxury is, ultimately, unknowable. Eve Chiapello’s (2005) The New Spirit None of this closing discussion of of Capitalism, for example, argues that, 12:1 March12:1 2016

Sombart’s perspective on luxury and historically, there have been three consec- • capitalism is intended to avoid a critical utive spirits of capitalism. The first took approach to the concept of spirit. As form in the nineteenth century through the mentioned, we have used spirit to mean important figure of the bourgeois entre-

POLITICS the enlivening or fundamental wellspring preneur as speculator, innovator, investor,

in humankind that imparts life to physical and ascetic paterfamilias. However, during organisms, contrary to their purely material the period 1930–60, particularly in France, components. However, conceptualiza- there arose a new figure: the superhuman

CULTURAL tions that conjure up the “breath of life” director of the large bureaucratic corpo- also have a dark side. During the Weimar ration. Planner, rational organizer, and 18 Republic (1919–33), for example, Sombart careerist, this second spirit of capitalism

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was shunned throughout France’s crisis of skills,” “personal capital,” “reputation,” 1968 as novel antiauthoritarian mobiliza- “integrity,” “sincerity,” and, above all, tions emerged as the third spirit of capital- “loyalty.” The ideal figure of the third spirit ism, which is the focus of the investigation of capitalism is consequently the itinerant that Boltanski and Chiapello undertake. networker who appears weightless and Unequivocally following Sombart’s lead, flexible, accepting of cultural difference Boltanski and Chiapello comparatively and fluctuation while being “realistic” examine French management texts from about people’s desires in an “informal,” the 1960s to the 1990s (59). Refusing “friendly” fashion. For Boltanski and whatever hints at hierarchy or constancy, Chiapello, then, Sombart’s writings on the today’s third spirit of capitalism is found spirit of capitalism offer a route into com- by Boltanski and Chiapello to be one prehending how we came to be controlled predicated on the perpetuity of transfor- by network enterprises and new ideas mation, the ever-rising intensity of global of exploitation that, for them and for us, competition, and, of course, the dominant necessitate a sociocultural critique that can organizational figure of the contemporary unify demands for solidarity and fairness “network enterprise” (see Castells 2000: with those for freedom and authenticity. 151–200). “Leanness” and “teamwork,” Truly, studying Boltanski and Chiapello, customer “satisfaction,” “visionary” lead- one cannot help but feel that Sombart ership, “coordinators” (not managers), and was correct to define the development of the relentless mobilization of “operatives” the spirit of capitalism ambiguously. For, (not workers) are, then, the watchwords as we saw with the arrival of the network of the third spirit of capitalism. Hence, the enterprise above, the development of the perfect capitalist organization is one made third spirit of capitalism is vague, even if up of self-organized teams that externalize the experience of exploitation is not. Any their costs to subcontractors and prac- post–Boltanski and Chiapello efforts to tice information-driven knowledge man- redefine the third spirit of capitalism must agement (Roberts 2015) rather than the therefore allow for various comparative management of “manpower.” Charisma methodologies. Yet such endeavors must and “gifts” of communication, “intuition,” also offer a critique of contemporary capi- mobility, and generalism are therefore talism that is not only historically informed the ideal attributes of today’s “dressed- and socially, culturally, and politically open- down,” “cool” capitalists, such as Mark minded but also focused on the embryonic Zuckerberg of Facebook fame. Shunning and thus inherently intuitive properties of the symbols of administrative or techni- “the fourth spirit of capitalism.” cal authority, these “liberated” leaders In the end, however, wherever luxury, and their networked enterprises delegate spirit, and capitalism are conjoined, we organizational control to their employees, researchers will need all our abilities of syn-

quality control to their customers, and any thesis and formulation, of marshaling dispa- POLITICS

disadvantages of their utopian dreams to rate evidence in the defense of our theses labor at the cost of the latter’s security or and our cultural values, whether of unity or any prospect of a fixed career path. The equality, even when considering the liberty

third spirit of capitalism is thus based on to luxuriate. In the search for some sort of CULTURAL projects of “continuous improvement” and authenticity, though, we argue that we are 19 seemingly endless talk of “employability unlikely to discover it in historical inquiries

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into economic systems that disdain Armitage, John, and Joanne Roberts. 2016. “Critical philosophies concerned with our attempts Luxury Studies: Defining a Field.” InCritical to release the body through sensuality, Luxury Studies: Art, Design, Media, edited by adornment, and even sexual depravity. As John Armitage and Joanne Roberts, 1–21. Sombart ([1913] 1967: 48) puts it: “This Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Bataille, Georges. (1967) 1991. Consumption. Vol. 1 of necessary cycle seems to encompass The Accursed Share. Translated by Robert Hurley. the deepest tragedy of human destiny; New York: Zone. that all culture, being an estrangement Baudrillart, Henri Joseph Léon. 1821–92. Histoire du from nature, carries in itself the germs of luxe privé et public depuis l’antiquité jusqu’à dissolution, destruction, and death.” No nos jours (History of Private and Public Luxury traditional economic history can incorporate from Ancient Times until Today). 6 vols. Paris: all of these ideas, but Sombart’s Luxury Hachette. and Capitalism, if both an undervalued Berg, Maxine. 2005. Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth- masterpiece and a “failed” explanation of Century Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. the precise relationship between luxury Berg, Maxine, and Elizabeth Eger, eds. 2003. Luxury and the spirit of capitalism, is an honorable in the Eighteenth-Century: Debates, Desires, and failure. It is up to us to continue Sombart’s Delectable Goods. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Berry, Christopher J. 1994. The Idea of Luxury: work on the spirit of capitalism through A Conceptual and Historical Investigation. the mapping of the terra incognita of the Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. contemporary spirit of luxury. Berry, Christopher J. 2016. “Luxury: A Dialectic of Desire?” In Critical Luxury Studies: Art, Design, Acknowledgments Media, edited by John Armitage and Joanne We are particularly grateful to Mark Featherstone for Roberts, 47–61. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University a productive discussion concerning the idea of the Press. spirit of luxury. We would also like to thank Mark and Bertuch, Friedrich Justin, and Georg Melchior Kraus. Ryan Bishop for their valuable comments on an earlier (1786) 2016. “Introduction to the Journal of version of this article. Luxury and Fashion (1786),” translated and with an introduction by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young. References Cultural Politics 12 (1): 23–31. Armitage, John. 2001. “Economies of Excess.” Parallax Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. 2005. The New Spirit 7 (1): 1–2. of Capitalism. London: Verso. Armitage, John. 2003. “On Ernst Jünger’s ‘Total Bowers, Simon. 2015. “Starbucks Brews Up First UK Mobilization’: A Re-evaluation in the Era of Profits in Seventeen Years.”Guardian , February 4. the War on Terrorism.” Body and Society 9 (4): Breckman, Warren, G. 1991. “Disciplining Consumption: 191–213. The Debate about Luxury in Wilhelmine Germany, 12:1 March12:1 2016

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John Armitage is professor of media arts and codirector of the Winchester Luxury Research Group at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. His research interests include luxury and visual culture. He is the coeditor, with Joanne Roberts, of Critical Luxury Studies: 12:1 March12:1 2016

•

Art, Design, Media (2016) and the coeditor, with Jonathan Faiers and Joanne Roberts, of The Luxury Reader (forthcoming).

Joanne Roberts is professor in arts and cultural management and director of the Winchester POLITICS Luxury Research Group at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. Her research interests include knowledge, innovation, creativity, and luxury. She has published articles in a wide range of international journals, including Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, and Research Policy. She has also authored and edited a number CULTURAL of books. Her latest sole-authored book is A Very Short, Fairly Interesting, and Reasonably

22 Cheap Book about Knowledge Management (2015).

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